


Next Time

by fabrega



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Not A Fix-It, Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 19:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14362467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: Eventually, Herc Hansen retires.





	Next Time

**Author's Note:**

> I went to see Pacific Rim Uprising and had ENTIRELY the wrong set of feelings about it, so here, my Feelings About Hercules Hansen. Thanks a million to Alex for the beta, because this wouldn't have gotten done without her. ♥

Eventually, Herc Hansen retires.

.

After Hong Kong, after the breach is closed, after--after all of it, there's so much to do. The PPDC needs a Marshal, one with the experience and knowledge to keep the place running and the balls to push back against the suits, who are coming out of the woodwork to express their support now that there's literally nothing at stake. Where were these assholes, Herc grumbles to himself, when they'd needed them? The very same assholes had shut down the jaeger program and left Stacker to put together the plan that had saved humanity with chewing gum and twine and a definitely-legally-acquired nuclear bomb, and Herc is determined to keep them from taking any of the credit for a victory that certainly isn't theirs.

So Herc perseveres, lets his anger and his grief and how much he cares about the people who are left drive him, lets it drive him to do good and necessary work, to build the program up into something that Stacker would've been proud of, lets it nearly drive him into the ground. They're reopening all the old Shatterdomes, building new jaegers to deploy from them, recruiting the personnel to staff them and the pilots to man them--peacetime vigilance, so that maybe next time, if there _is_ a next time, they'll be ready.

God, Herc hopes there won't ever be a next time.

.

He's inspecting the recruits at the Sydney 'dome when it hits him. He walks up and down the line, looking at each of them in turn, tugging Max along as Max tries to sniff at each one's boots. The recruits are too young, their backs ramrod straight and their eyes sparkling with barely-contained excitement. Each of them is somebody's kid, he suddenly realizes, like Chuck had been his, and he and the PPDC are asking each one of them to put their lives on the line for...for....

They've been sold a story of heroism and bravery that's never going to line up with the way things actually were, the way things actually _are_. The nausea hits Herc in a wave, and he turns on his heel and retreats without saying a word.

Mako finds him in his office, sitting on the floor next to Max, staring somewhere past the office window that looks out into the Shatterdome. She sits next to him carefully and doesn't say anything. Whatever he's feeling, he realizes, she _knows_ , because she was there too. There are so few of them around these days. Herc can't blame anyone for leaving--they'd _won_. It was supposed to be over. The people who'd stuck around had been the ones who'd had nowhere else to go.

"They're so goddamn _young_ ," Herc says. He doesn't look over at Mako; it's easier when he doesn't have to meet her eyes.

"So was I," Mako says, and Herc can hear the wry smile in her voice. "So were you, once."

Herc's not sure that's true, but he smiles anyway. 

Max raises his head now, sniffing at the air curiously before rising slowly to his feet and making his way over to Mako. He knows and loves Mako, and he pants excitedly as she leans down to greet him. She takes Max's face in her hands and plants a kiss on his broad doggy forehead.

Herc squeezes his eyes shut tight as the familiarity of the movement punches him in the gut. He tries to breathe through it: a deep breath in, and then out, in, and then out. He knows the wound will never fully heal, but he feels like for the most part he's doing better these days--

Mako's voice cuts through his thoughts, quiet and sincere. "You don't have to do this, you know."

He looks over at her now, and she's not meeting his eyes either. Max has flopped over on his side, and Mako is scratching lightly across his belly and up under his chin, staring hard at the dog and not at Herc.

"You have given the jaeger program more than enough. No one could ask any more of you."

Herc laughs flatly. "It's an important job, and somebody has to do it. I'm the one--" _who's left_ , he doesn't say, lets his jaw work around the words for a long moment instead. "You know what's at stake. Better me, unhappy, than whatever poor bastard the UN would put in my place when I left."

Max makes a dissatisfied noise; when Herc glances over, Mako has gone still. There's a pinch between her brows, and she looks at Herc, looks away, and then back again before saying, "About that..." 

This is how Herc finds out about the plan to transfer the power structure of the PPDC from a single man in charge to a leadership council, and how Mako has been approached about the position of Secretary General. None of it's official yet, Mako says, but things are moving behind the scenes to get all the pieces in place.

"When was anyone going to tell me?!"

"Now. I'm telling you now." Mako voice is firm, refusing to rise to meet Herc's anger. "I won't let them force you out unless you want to go. They want me on the Council, and I can make my acceptance conditional on them offering you a position too."

"Do _you_ want me on the Council?"

"You're a good man and you care about the program. I think the Council would be lucky to have you...but like I said, I cannot ask any more of you."

Herc opens his mouth to respond, to say _you've never had to ask, the program has never had to ask_ \--but Mako cuts him off. She doesn't want an answer now, but makes him promise that he'll think about it.

.

He wakes in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, from a dream he can't quite remember. He scrubs a hand over his face and tries to will his muscles to relax; when that doesn't work, he climbs out of bed, makes himself relatively presentable, grabs his old Striker drivesuit helmet out of the closet, and heads down to the drift training room. 

Herc had always been a little skeptical of the brain-in-a-jar they let the cadets practice drifting with, but it seems to work, and it had let them recruit from a wider range of folks when they'd needed the manpower. He's always had--he's never--since Hong Kong, he hasn't drifted with anybody, hasn't wanted to, hasn't thought he even could. Tonight, though, he hooks the helmet up to the machine and lets himself sink into the drift, into his memories. He's an old pro at this, despite the years since he's last tried, and he closes his eyes as the drift hits--

and opens them to find himself seated at a card table. He's holding a mediocre poker hand, and when he looks around the table, he sees a couple faces he can put names to, a couple faces he can't: Tendo, Dr. Geiszler, that blond who rides with Stacker's kid, the jaeger tech who'd yelled at them last time Striker had limped back to base, Chuck. He remembers this night. He's going to lose this hand and the next one, and then Stacker's gonna come in and the blond will panic and throw himself across the table so Stacker won't see that they're _gambling_. 

Stacker won't care that they're gambling. He's looking for Herc, and would've let himself be dealt in for a hand or two if they'd wanted. Instead, Herc will follow him back to his office, and the strategic planning Stacker needs him for will get done _eventually_ \--

"So what are you guys gonna do when you get out?" Tendo asks, leaning back across his chair with what Herc knows is a practiced slouch. His hand must not be good either.

"Why would I get out?" Chuck asks. "I'm a jaeger pilot. It's not gonna get better than this."

Tendo laughs. "Yeah, but if we all do our jobs right, someday you'll run out of kaiju. What then?"

Chuck shrugs. "Dad was in the Air Force in peacetime. Maybe they'll keep some of us on."

The jaeger tech sighs heavily. "I don't know where I'm going to end up, but wherever it is, I'm going to be doing something low-stress, something I can do wrong without the whole fate of humanity hanging in the balance. Knitting. Painting. _Yoga_."

"I'm gonna go to the private sector," Dr. Geiszler says, a dreamy look in his eye. "Saving the world is great and all, but there are days I'd kill a man for my own office."

Tendo chuckles. "I'm gonna get some cheap beachfront property somewhere, live out my days in the sun with no worries."

"Sounds nice," the blond chimes in. Herc _really_ ought to remember his name. Nick? Neil? It's gotta be something like that. He drums his fingers impatiently on the table, looking down at his cards. "Can we get back to the game?"

Tendo ignores him and raises an eyebrow at Herc. "What about you? What're you gonna do when all this is over?"

Herc shrugs, but before he can answer, Chuck answers for him. "Dad can't go anywhere. How'm I gonna pilot Striker without him?"

"You'd manage," Herc says. He's been in Chuck's head, remembers this moment from Chuck's side too, feels an echo of the way Chuck's stomach flips a little at his pronouncement, the way all feelings get shoved down almost immediately. "Can't do this forever. Gotta get out someday."

"Nah," Chuck says. He gives Herc a cocky grin. "You and me, old man, we're in this together all the way."

\--he comes up out of the drift, gasping.

He lets Mako know he's made up his mind. He takes the time to hand off his command appropriately, and then Herc Hansen retires. 

.

It takes him a while to figure out what he wants retirement to look like, a while to stop calling Mako every three days to check on how things are going. He takes some of the very generous compensation package the PPDC had put together for him--saving the world has its perks, it turns out--and buys himself a place a couple of hours outside Sydney. It's got a yard for Max to run around in and only as many rooms as Herc needs, and it never feels too big or too empty. 

He goes in to town a couple times a month, talks to a therapist the PPDC is happy to pay for. He finally allows himself the time and the space to feel his grief, to miss all the people he'd lost over the years. It aches in his chest and deep in his bones, and, he realizes, that's okay. 

He gets another bulldog, a lady friend so Max won't get lonely. Next thing he knows, there's a whole litter of puppies running around the house, getting into everything and causing trouble. Honestly, it reminds him of when Chuck was little, and the thought, when he has it, doesn't hurt him nearly as much as he expects.

The PPDC are building a new headquarters in Sydney, a tall glass skyscraper that's exactly the kind of thing a kaiju would love to tear down. Herc's invited to the groundbreaking and then to the grand opening; he shows up to each occasion, clean-shaven and stiff in his uniform, and feels entirely out of place. The faces he recognizes are few and far between, and everyone--everyone but Mako--seems to treat him with the kind of reverence that requires them to keep him at arm's-length. It's somehow even lonelier than he'd been as Marshal, and he resolves to turn down the next invitation they send him.

Mako calls him, from time to time, to fill him in on how things are going at the PPDC, all the things he's probably not authorized to know anymore but gets to know regardless. The program they're building sounds incredible, and Herc's glad that Mako is there to help it through its growing pains and guide it in the right directions. She visits him at his place, once or twice, and spoils the puppies rotten and lights up every room she's in, and Herc is glad too that they're still friends, after everything.

.

It's been a decade since they closed the breach, and Herc is settling easily into middle age. The house is home, and the dogs are family, and the ache of loss is dull and comfortable most days. He's almost entirely extricated himself from the PPDC--they don't even call him for big occasions anymore--so he's a little worried when he comes in from playing with the dogs one afternoon and he has a missed call from the one guy he still knows at HQ. They talk about twice a year, over drinks in Sydney, and he tries and fails to figure out what could be worth calling him like this before he listens to the voicemail.

_Given...given everything, I just thought you would want to know. The PPDC picked Jake Pentecost up again, and this time, he was in a jaeger._

Stacker hadn't ever really wanted to talk about Jake, and Herc's relationship with his own son had never seemed good enough for Herc to force the issue without seeming hypocritical. At the time, he knew that Stacker's kid had joined the Corps, and that Stacker had been doing his level best at that point to protect humanity and his family and to keep them all as far out of harm's way as possible. With Mako, it had been impossible to avoid her involvement in the jaeger program, but with Jake... Stacker got weird for a bit when Jake had joined, and then Stacker got a different kind of weird for a bit when Jake had been kicked out.

Herc has gotten the full story since... since then, heard about the trouble Jake's been in since they closed the breach. Herc's therapist says that everyone deals with grief differently, and god knows they've all got reasons to be mourning Stacker Pentecost.

Herc wonders if this time will be different for Jake.

He doesn't think much more about it until the attack in Sydney. He's half-watching the ceremony on TV--Secretary General Mori is there, the reporters say, escorted by the jaeger Gipsy Avenger, which is piloted by Jake Pentecost and Nate Lambert (oh, yeah, _that's_ that kid's name). Herc has mostly tuned it out as he putters around the kitchen, his back to the screen as he prepares lunch for himself and the dogs, but he drops the knife and turns, horrified, as the screaming starts. Things go very bad very, very quickly, and even though Herc knows that he's far enough outside the city that he'd never make it there in time to be of any use, he still goes out to the jeep that's parked in the drive, listens to the news coverage on the radio and clutches the steering wheel until his knuckles go white.

He gets a call, in the aftermath, from a number he doesn't recognize. When he answers, a familiar voice on the other end says, "Marshal Hansen?"

"Raleigh." Keeping his voice even is a struggle; he hasn't heard from Raleigh Becket in years, and the only reason he can think of that he'd be calling now--

"It's Mako," Raleigh says. "She's..."

Herc wishes he was surprised. Herc wishes the news was anything but this. Herc wishes there had been anything he could do.

Raleigh continues, "They called me first, and I figured--you should hear it from somebody here instead of on the news."

"Raleigh, I'm so sorry. If there's anything I can do, just say the word." Herc means it, too. Raleigh had been there, for Mako and for him, in the aftermath of everything a decade ago, and it is the least he can do to return the favor. Besides, Mako was his friend too, and the world is poorer for her loss--anything Herc can do will be insignificant compared to what he and the rest of the world owe her.

The PPDC holds a memorial service, another small thing in comparison to what the world owes her. Herc is there, on the dais with Raleigh and Jake and a half-dozen other people Herc probably ought to know. Everyone is strong-jawed and teary-eyed, and Herc repeats to himself the things his therapist has told him about loss and grief, trying not to cry.

There are speeches. The acting-head of the PPDC talks about how much Mako did for the organization, and how she'll be missed. Jake talks about Mako as a sibling, about the bonds they'd forged as kids, about how much he loved his sister, about how much she _was_ his sister, about how they'd reconnected recently and how she'd been there for him in so many ways. Raleigh talks about Mako as a partner, as a person, as the bright young woman who'd saved the world, as the person who'd saved _him_.

Herc doesn't give a speech--everything he'd say has already been said more eloquently, by people who knew her better. He thinks about the look Mako had given him when he'd told her that he was actually, finally going to retire; he thinks about how she'd saved his life then, figuratively and maybe literally. 

He lets himself cry.

Then he goes back to his house and his dogs and his retirement, and tries to settle back into a normal life. (Later, watching the news about Tokyo, he realizes that _normal_ is always going to be relative for him, and maybe that's okay.)

.

When the dust has settled in Tokyo, when humanity is safe and Herc has very pointedly not called anybody he knows at the PPDC to see how things are going, there's a knock at his door. When Herc answers, Jake Pentecost is on his front porch, a sheepish grin on his face.

"Marshal Hansen," Jake says.

The corner of Herc's mouth tugs up. "Ranger Pentecost."

Jake elbows past him into the house, and Herc lets him, biting back a smile. He paces across the living room, back and forth, the dogs circling his ankles while Herc takes a patient seat on the sofa. Jake Pentecost just saved the world, so Jake Pentecost gets as much time and space as he needs. Besides, he is his father's son, and Herc and Stacker--

"You knew my dad, yeah? In those last days?"

Herc nods. "I did."

Jake's jaw moves with words he's not saying, and Herc lets that happen too. The words, when they do happen, spill out of Jake like a dam bursting. "I'm not gonna...I'm not gonna ask you if he would've been proud of me, because that's not even the point anymore--"

"He would've been."

Jake stops pacing and finally stares up at Herc. He looks so much like his dad that Herc's chest aches. They stand there like that for probably too long before Jake says, "You know, we're gonna have to rebuild the jaeger program again. I hear you've got some experience with that."

Herc pauses to look around at the life he's built for himself, the house and the dogs and the retirement. It may be small, nothing special, but it's his. There was a point in his life where he would've jumped at the offer to come back to the jaeger program, love and guilt and obligation making the choice seem like no choice at all. But now? He's comfortable. He's happy. He fought hard for this little slice of life--he'd lost people he cared about dearly, for this life--and he's going to hold onto it the way they would've wanted him to.

Besides, the PPDC has saved the world without him now, so he's under no misconceptions that all of that can't be done without him.

Herc thinks about Jake's offer, and he can't help it--he laughs. "Sorry, kid, I'm retired."


End file.
